A Day at the Beach
by Phoenix-Inferno18
Summary: Zim has to go on a "field" trip to seem normal. What Zim does not know is that Earth has oceans and that this field trip is not to a field, but to the ocean! Irkens and water don't mix, this can't end well...


Hi! I am back and I have decided to do a one-shot based on an idea I had for an Invader Zim fanfic!

Many thanks to the people who have read and favorited and followed my other stories, you guys are the best! And as for the people who reviewed, well….. I don't know any way to say this other than YOU ARE AMAZING! Seriously, reviews totally make my day. I absolutely love the long ones, but even the short ones make me feel happy.

Anyways, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim. I just own the ideas. I know that this is not the wittiest disclaimer ever, but oh well.

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"Klass, turn to page 826 of your textbooks and read the next ten pages."

The students flipped through the pages, and slowly started reading. Ms. Bitters -sensing their reluctance- decided that they needed more motivation.

"There will be a quiz on this tomorrow. Anyone who fails will be transferred to the underground klassroom. Any questions?"

The whole klass groaned, but fell short at the glare that they received from their teacher. All but one kid who kept whispering; seemingly not noticing that the room had fallen silent. The rest of the children stared in horror at the perpetrator, knowing what was to come.

Sure enough, Ms. Bitters was quick to find the offending student. The student continued blabbering, blissfully unaware of his situation until a shadow darkened his face. The student slowly looked up, horror adorning his features as he realized what had happened. He started to stammer out an apology, but it was in vain.

His seat fell out from under him as he vanished with a scream.

"Ha! The miserable pig smelly has met his doom! Doom I say! Doom!" Zim cried out, jumping onto his desk with a gleeful expression on his face. His evil grin faltered as he noticed that the entire klass was staring at him.

"I mean, too bad. What a shame." Zim corrected himself. "I'm normal!"

"Yes, you are Zim." Ms. Bitters said unenthusiastically. "Now please get down from the desk before I have to send you to the underground klassroom as well. The principle is already on my case about how often we have to replace students."

Zim sat back down at his desk with as innocent of an expression as he could muster. Dib just looked on with an annoyed expression.

"You know, I swear that every day my faith in humanity shrinks a little." Dib muttered to himself while massaging his temples.

"Back to work klass." Ms. Bitters snapped. The whole klass jumped and continued quickly and nervously reading their textbooks.

The whole room was silent for the next ten minutes until the bell rang. The students looked up with hopeful expressions which were significantly dampened when their teacher spoke.

"I expect you to read pages 850 to 900 in your textbooks and complete the accompanying worksheets for homework."

The klass sighed but dared not to complain. They had learned their lesson when Terry had protested that one time when Ms. Bitters had assigned them the encyclopedia for homework. Poor Terry.

"However, I do have some- _good_ news." Ms. Bitters said, spitting out the word good as though it disgusted her. "We will be going on a field trip to the beach where you maggots will surely enjoy yourselves. If it was up to me we would not be doing this, but evidentially we have had complaints that we are "crushing your spirits" and "suppressing your creativity" and such. So, bring your water bottles and lunch and stuff tomorrow. Be here at 8 o'clock sharp, we will leave you behind if you are late."

This news made the children erupt in cheers, and there was much excited chatter as they flooded out of the klassroom. However, Zim lingered behind. He had seen a rather malevolent expression on Dib's face when he heard where they were going that made Zim rather worried.

"Yes Zim." The teacher said, acknowledging his presence.

"Ms. Bitters, what field is this "beach" in, and is it dangerous?"

"Sure Zim, sure." Ms. Bitters replied, obviously beyond caring what any students had to say anymore. "Now go do whatever it is you do when you are not here."

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"And so GIR, I must go on this "field" trip if I am to maintain my cover. Evidentially it is a normal thing for humans to do and to avoid this," Zim paused, searching for a word. " _pleasurable_ human activity may cause suspicion. However, I will not be caught unprepared!"

Zim and GIR were in the secret "evil lair" under Zim's house. Zim was talking to GIR who was nodding his head at everything Zim said.

Zim proceeded to grab a huge blaster from the rack on the wall they were facing. Stuffing it into his PAK (how it fit in there, nobody knows. Irken technology can be so advanced that it may even seem to defy the laws of physics)

"No, I shall not be unprepared. An Invader is never unprepared! I will wipe that grin off of Dib-Stink's face! I will show this field that I am nothing to be trifled with!

Zim continued to too stuff things into his PAK, chatting to GIR the whole time. If one was watching him pack, they would have been amazed by the amount and randomness of the objects he chose, not to mention confused at how all of these things could fit in said PAK. A sock, a tuba, and a live rat; there seemed to be a growth in randomness with every new object.

GIR had long since ceased paying attention to his master. He wandered off as Zim continued to ramble on, unaware of his absence.

"Doo dee doo dee doo" GIR sung to himself, seeking out something to amuse himself. He found nothing however and sat down, his expression the pure embodiment of boredom. He blinked though as something caught his eye.

"Oooooo" GIR headed toward the blinking red light that had caught his attention. Its source turned out to be a big red button, which was pulsing with bright light. The button was surrounded by signs saying things such as….

"Dangerous."

"Do not touch."

"That means you GIR!"

Zim was still talking, though about what was undetermined. He had somehow drifted onto the topic of sandwiches and had been pacing and babbling on about them for the last minute or so.

"I'm gonna push that button!" GIR announced loudly and cheerfully.

"Eh, what?" Zim mumbled, looking up for the first time in the last ten minutes. Upon seeing GIR and the button, his eyes widened.

"No GIR!" He cried out in panic. "Don't push that-" But he was too late. GIR slammed down on the button and all of the machinery in the base quit working. The computer continued to work just long enough to inform Zim of the situation.

" Full random shutdown of everything for the next hour has been commenced!"

Then it was silent.

"Why do I even have that button?!" Zim fumed to himself.

"Nooooo! How can I make waffles now!" GIR panicked. "Waffles! I miss you!" He screamed.

"Ok, bye bye." GIR said, and Zim was left alone in the dark.

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As Zim left his "normal earth house" the next morning, he was nervous. He had spent the whole night preparing and thinking up what this "beach" could be. He had packed everything under the sun, in fact he had packed almost half of the contents of his base. How he fit it all in his PAC was once again anybody's guess.

 **Flashback**

"And no matter what is contained within this horrible field, Zim shall be victorious! The Dib-Monkey thinks that he can outsmart me, the greatest Invader Irk –no, the entire universe- has ever known! Though Zim may not know what this beach is, Zim will conquer it! Zim will not fail!"

"Umm, Zim." The computer –now booted up once again along with the rest of the systems- said. "You do know that I could just look up what the beach is on the human internet, right?"

"Nonsense! Zim needs no help from this human interweb! You speak ridiculousness! How dare you even suggest such a thing, I bet it wouldn't even work!"

If the computer had shoulders, it would have shrugged them. It had long ago come to accept the craziness that was Zim's train of thought. And so, it allowed Zim to continue to pack.

 **Flashback Ends**

As he walked to skool like a "typical earthen worm baby", Zim shuffled through the contents in his PAC.

Screwdriver? Check.

Monkey Painting? Check.

Spare batteries? Check.

Floopisngit Litnor? Check.

Kitchen Sink? Check.

All seemed to be in place. So as Zim walked into the classroom, he flashed Dib-Human a confidant and mocking grin. The pig-smelly seemed slightly off-put, but then went back to looking smug. As Zim took a seat and waited for Ms. Bitters to arrive, he tried to appear confidant. The truth was, even with all of his preparation he was still anxious. The Dib-Human's confidence and smugness did not help matters. Anything that made him happy was probably not good for Zim.

"All right klass, get on the bus. You will be taken care of by these parent volunteers, which means I expect not to have to see you for the rest of the day. Now, shoo."

The students flooded out of the classroom and into the bus. The students looked conflicted when Dib and Zim sat on opposite sides of the bus, treating them like unpopularity was a contagious disease. Eventually everyone settled for cramming into the very back of the bus, as both boys were sitting somewhat near the front. They were very cramped, but at least they didn't have to sit by one of the class "crazy people".

Zim sat quietly, facing forward and trying to seem like a normal earth pig smelly out for a good time. This was difficult for several reasons. First of all, Zim knew that things that human smeets considered fun were often very painful for an Irken like him. And secondly, it was hard to act normal with Dib laughing manically a way too short distance away.

This awkwardness persisted. Zim sat there for what seemed like weeks (but was actually a few hours, Zim knew this because humans had many biological needs that they did not seem to be struggling for yet). Just as Zim was about to give up on seeming normal and jump out of the window, the bus rolled to a stop.

The students jumped to their feet and poured out of the skool bus. Zim looked out of the bus window and froze. SO MUCH WATER….

Dib stopped by Zim's seat on his way out of the bus.

"What's up, Space boy?" He said maliciously. "Didn't you know Earth has oceans? Surely you must have seen them when you landed that spaceship of yours."

"Of course, I knew." Zim said with false confidence and nervous laughter. "What else would the blue be?"

Dib just smiled, with a strong resemblance to a shark's grin when it has its prey cornered. He stepped out of the bus with a very ominous look on his face.

Zim just continued to stare in shock at the large body of water. It seemed to go on forever. He had known that the blue on the planet meant something, but oceans had never occurred to him. Zim didn't notice how long he had been sitting there before the bus driver spoke.

"Hey kid, are you getting off? Some of us don't have all day you know."

Zim nodded his head and wordlessly got off the bus. With all of his incredible, brilliant planning, Zim had forgotten one thing. Paste.

As Zim stepped out of the bus, a horrible smell assaulted him. Zim could only describe it as the smell of the dumpster planet Floog, if it was covered in salt. It was foul! However, the humans seemed unbothered by it, so Zim forced himself to ignore the smell and force the expression of disgust from his face.

The human children were now wearing some sort of new garment. It seemed to be made of a sleek, almost plastic-like fabric. Zim watched in horror as the pig-smellies began to splash in the horrible liquid that extended as far as the eye could see. Human fun customs, he concluded. Just like splashing in that horrible rain.

"Honey, where is your swim suit?" A concerned parent volunteer asked Zim.

" I forgot it." Zim said. He suspected that the word was a reference to the garments that the beach-humans were all wearing. He did not understand their purpose however, and hoped that it was not too terribly "inhuman" too not have one.

"Oh honey, it is too late to get one now. I am afraid that you will just have to stay out of the water. Don't worry, you can still play in the sand and there is an ice-cream stand nearby if you brought money."

"Very well." Zim said with mock disappointment, but inside he was ecstatic. Evidentially it was not too unusual to forget one of these "suits" and human culture required one in order to go into the water.

Dib -who had been watching Zim with the same smug look he had had on his face ever since Ms. Bitters had announced the trip- looked disappointed, but not entirely put out. Then his face lit up with malicious intent as a thought seemed to occur to him. Dib turned around and headed toward the ocean.

Zim –having not noticed Dib's actions- was currently attempting to blend in and seem normal. After looking around some, he observed human stink-beasts shaping the sand into shapes. Well, it looked harmless enough. Zim poked the sand, and then shoved it into a pile. He stared at it for a minute as if expecting it to rise up and form a shape all on its own. When it didn't, Zim screamed in outrage.

"Stupid earth sand! How dare you not bend to the will of the mighty Zim?! I will crush you until you are even more sand then you are now! I will crush you until you are sand made out of sand made out of sand!"

Several passerby's and parent volunteers shot Zim concerned and curious looks, but the klass just ignored him. After all, they saw Zim every day and he was always like this.

"Well, well, well."

Zim looked up to see Dib standing above him.

"It's almost like you have never seen sand before. How sad. You do know that you need to add water to it for it to hold its form, right? But you won't do that. In fact, I bet you won't even go near the water."

"Of course, I know this, Dib-Stink" Zim retaliated. "Your big head was just blocking out the sun so much that I couldn't see that there was not already water in the filthy earth sand."

Dib ground his teeth in anger. "Seriously, again with insulting my head? What is with everyone? My head is a perfectly normal size!"

A girl's voice sounded from somewhere behind Dib.

"You're crazy!"

"I am not crazy! And I will prove it to everyone!"

"And how are you planning on doing that?" Zim asked skeptically.

"Like this!" Dib whipped his arms out from behind his back –Zim hadn't even noticed that his hands were behind his back- and produced a giant water gun!

Zim's eyes widened and he took a step back.

"Now Dib-stink don't-"

But he was too late. Dib laughed maniacally as he blasted Zim in the face with the contents of the water gun.

"AAARARRARARGGGGG BLLLLLUURRRGGG I'm dying!" Zim screamed. The salt water burned even more than normal earth water did, it was it literally rubbing salt into a wound. Zim frantically pawed at his face to try and stop the onslaught of pain, and causing a contact lens to fall out of his left eye.

Gaz shot him a scornful look as she walked past, playing her Game-slave 2.

"Whiner."

Dib jumped up on a rock and pointed at Zim's exposed eye.

"You see! He is an alien! Look at his eye!"

All of the people on the beach turned to stare at the alien. Zim –noticing the attention- jumped to his feet.

"Fools! Can't you see that that horrible salty poison water has irritated my perfectly normal human stink thing eye?!"

After hearing this, the crowd redirected their attention to what they were doing. Dib frantically waved his arms in an attempt to regain their attention.

"Wait! That doesn't even make sense! And who would call their own species human stink things? Huh? HUH? It's so obvious that-"

"You're crazy!" The whole mass gathered on the beach all yelled together, then went back to ignoring Dib. One mother grabbed her young child who was playing near Dib and dragged him in the other direction because "The craziness may be contagious!"

Zim slipped his contact back in, his skin still smoking from contact with the water.

"Nice try Dib-Stink, but they will never believe you. My disguise is too perfect!"

"We will see about that Zim, we will see about that…"

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Zim was tired, sore, and ready for the day to end. Dib had ambushed him three more times with the water gun, thrown a sandwich at him, and called him many names.

"Space boy"

"Alien Freak"

"Idiot Invader"

"Hey Zim!" Dib called out before dumping a bucket of sand on the irken's head.

Zim fumed as he felt the sand seep into his clothes. The sand was very scratchy and annoying, and it would not be easy to get it off as his only way of getting clean on this filthy planet is cleansing chalk. Zim had had enough. He would not stand for this! He was a mighty invader, not a helpless smeet! The Dib-Monkey would pay for this! But how?

Zim watched the activities taking place on the beach. People walking dogs. People swimming. A little girl digging in the sand with a plastic shovel. Seagulls snatching up French fries. GIR dancing the hula- wait why was GIR here? No matter. As Zim scanned his surroundings, a plan began to form in his brilliant mind.

MaWooOoo HHAAHAAHAHAHAAH!

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Thanks to his paranoid planning, Zim had all of the items he needed to extract his revenge. The Dib-human was sitting under an umbrella, looking quite pleased with himself. Zim figured that he had at least ten minutes before he came back to torment him.

Zim got to work quickly. Attaching a voice changer to his throat, he took out a big bag of cat hair from his bag. He still had a large supply from when GIR had "adopted" that mangy stray he called Tuna.

Zim then extracted a metal device that resembled a grappling hook from his bag. He held it and controlled the device so that it extended and grabbed one of the humans from the ocean. As usual, nobody noticed a thing.

"Hey dude," said the person Zim had grabbed. "Watcha doin?"

Not bothering to answer, Zim threw the bag of cat hair all over the pitiful human, who didn't even blink. The wetness of the human's sunburnt skin caused the cat hair to stick it, creating an uncanny resemblance to- guess who? As an added bonus, Zim knew that Dib-Stink had a negative reaction to cat hair.

Zim jumped in the bushes, pressing a button on the voice changer.

"Hey, look! It's a Big-Feet!" Zim's cried, his voice sounding like he had just inhaled helium.

As expected, Dib jumped to his feet.

"Where?! Where?!"

His eyes widened as he spotted the cat-hairified man.

"Bigfeet! I have you now!"

The unfortunate man took off in a sprint when he saw the overexcited child rush straight at him.

"Wait Big-Feet, come back!"

"Get away from me man!"

The other beachgoers looked on in mild interest.

"Has anyone seen the crazy bucket?"

"Nah, I didn't bring mine. Didn't realize Dib was going to be here."

"I brought mine, but Dib is gone now. Oh well."

Zim let out an evil cackle when he saw that his plan had worked.

"Mwoooo hahahaha! Mwoo- Oh come on! That totally just ruined the moment!" Zim had forgotten to turn the voice changer off so his evil laugh ended up sounding like it was made by a chipmunk on steroids. An evil chipmunk perhaps, but none the less a chipmunk.

Ripping off the voice changer in disgust, Zim riffled through his PAK once again. He then pulled out a book on earth animals. Zim had purchased the book –more like just taken it, but who cares- from a store after the whole "Zim Zoo" incident. He had decided that he was never going to repeat that incident again. Now, what Earth creature would be inconspicuous enough that nobody would notice anything amiss?

Interesting, according to this book some Earth animals lived in the water. They had a tail and "fins" or something like that which distinguished them from land animals. Zim flipped through the book until he found the perfect earth ocean beast. Oh, this was going to be good….

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"Ah hah! I've got you Big-Feet! There's nowhere to run!"

"Seriously dude, I'm not a Big-Feet! Leave me alone!"

"That sounds like something a Big-Feet would say!"

Dib had the "Big-Feet" cornered. He pulled out his anti Big-Feet handcuffs (Which he never went anywhere without, you never know when you will run into a Big-Feet) and tackled the man, pinning him against the wall and handcuffing him to a flagpole.

"Ha I- achooo!"

The man looked at Dib in concern.

"Choo! Arggg! Just a minute-" Dib's face erupted in hives, it was not a pretty sight.

Dib saw himself in the reflection of a nearby window.

" What! But I'm not allergic to Big-Feet! I'm just allergic to-"

Suddenly the sprinklers in the yard turned on, soaking them both. The water washed the cat hair off of the man, revealing that he was indeed just a normal human.

"You're not a Big-Feet? Then why were you covered in hair?!"

"I tried to tell you, some green kid just tossed a bucket of cat hair all over me! I have no idea where he got it from, it was kind of weird that he was just carrying it around I guess."

Dib's eyes narrowed. Green kid. ZIM. He took off back towards the beach.

"Anyways if you could just unhandcuff me the- Hey wait kid, where are you going? Wait! Don't leave me here!"

But Dib was gone.

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Dib charged toward the beach. He couldn't believe he fell for that! Who knew what Zim had done while he was gone!

Dib stepped onto the hot sand, anxiety filling his entire being. What if Zim had made the sand poisonous? What is he had blown all of the shops up?! What if he had turned everyone into llamas and was now ruling the world?!

 _Calm down Dib._ He told himself. _It was only like 15 minutes. Zim can't have done that much in just 15 minutes, even if he is Zim._

Dib eyes scoured the beach for any kind of trouble. Finding none, he blinked. Then he sighed in relief. _See? He probably expected you to be gone for longer. He hasn't even done anything yet._

Suddenly, Dib was lost his footing when the ground shook.

 **Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!**

Precariously stacked drinks fell, children cried over toppled sandcastles, and sunbathers complained as they rolled face-first into the sand.

Dib's eyes moved wildly, looking for the undoubtedly Zim related source of the shaking. His eyes landed on a large shape emerging from the water. First the ears, then the body, then the tail emerged from the water. It was... a giant mouse! Yes, it was indeed a mouse, and Dib could see Zim sitting inside of it through the "eyes" which were actually windows.

"Dib! Surrender now! For I –Zim- will destroy you!" Zim's voice echoed out from the speakers in the mouse's large ears.

Noticing some of the odd looks the machine was getting, Zim once again spoke up.

"Why hello humans! I am a perfectly normal Earth water beast! See my fins and tail?" Zim announced through the speakers, motioning to the ears and tail of the mouse.

"Seems normal to me."

Uh huh."

"Nothing unusual here."

Dib scowled. "Oh, come on! How can nobody see anything unusual here! Mice aren't even sea creatures! And they certainty are not that big!"

"Sure they are Dib-Stink! Do you not see the fins and tail, which all water beasties have?"

"Zim, that's it's ears."

Zim paused. Oh. "No matter! I will still destroy you with it!"

Dib looked around the beach once again. "Seriously, nobody sees anything wrong with this?"

"You're crazy!"

"I am not- bllluuuggrrrhgggg!"

The mouse's nose had opened up to reveal a water blaster, which had then shot poor Dib –who was still suffering from his allergies- with a gallon of water.

"Ha ha ha! Stupid Dib beast! Victory for ZIM!"

As Zim readied another blast, Dib dodged; causing the water to soak the cheerful teacher's assistant from before.

"Seriously Zim, how did you build this in 15 minutes?"

"Do not question ZIM!"

Dib dodged yet another water blast, this one soaking a hot dog stand. The battle went on like this for another 20 minutes. Dib did his best to dodge but still was too slow a few times. However, this was not enough for Zim.

"Hold still Dib-Stink!"

"Never!"

Zim shot off another blast of water. It seemed at first as if it was going to hit Dib, but he dodged last second. The water barreled forward, heading in the worst direction possible. Towards Gaz.

Both Zim and Dib froze as the water made impact.

"I'm outta here, see you later Dib-Stink!" Zim cried, before running for the woods.

"I'll get you for this Zim!" Dib cried toward where Zim had vanished. "I'll get you for this!"

A dark swarm of storm clouds swirled above Gaz as she approached Dib. Dib could see that the water had short-circuited her Game-Slave. Gulp.

"DIB!" Gaz's voice rang out with a thunderous roar. "Do you know what you just did?! I was ten seconds away from beating the evil clown hog!"

"But… But… Zim.."

"Prepare to enter a world of pain Dib!"

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The End! Did you guys see that one coming? Please don't forget to favorite and review, review, review! As I've said before, it only takes a few seconds and it means the world to me! Thanks everyone!


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